one thing i could think of how would you be able to restore and or preserve a modern car with airbags? in say 20 years time.
By not getting into an accident that causes the airbags to deploy in the first place and maintain it diligently, if under the terms of preserving it? Restoring a modern car what you say, 20 years in the future, probably wouldn't be any different from restoring a classic/vintage car today. But it depends on the condition of said car, plus the certain car as well, like, who would bother preserving a 2010 Chevrolet Cruze, or whatever it's called in other countries? Most cars today are built to be disposable, something that can be recycled. Older classics, like a 50's Cadillac wasn't built to be recycled, since it really wasn't heard of back then. I mean, there are going to be cars that can arguably be "future classics" but that leads to what I said initially, A modern/current car today with airbags, that hasn't been in an accident, has been taken care of properly, will last as long as it can, given that any current/future owners takes care of it.
Well, the problem with today's cars, in terms of future restoration, is all the plastics and computerized components. If I park a 2010 Mustang out in a field and it gets rained on for 30 years, the animals move in, and the sun beats down, all the plastics and computers will just break down. If I pull a 1970 mustang out of a field, it will probably have some rust, and need new hoses and gaskets, but the rest will just need to be cleaned up well. A carburetor is a few castings and some metal parts, that can be hosed out and sprayed with carb cleaner, but once all the little tiny plastic and computerized components in a fuel injection system decay, they are gone. The on-board computer, plastic bumpers and trim, plastic manifolds, plastic radiators, plastic engine covers, computerized automatic trans components and such in modern cars will crack and decay if you don't take good care of it. The metal on today's cars is also much less resistant to rust decay because of it's thickness, I am already seeing cars from 2010+ that are driving around with red frames and rusted wheel wells, while it took a few years longer to develop rot on older vehicles. But that's just my opinion.
Couple possible reasons Money. Cars are made to a budget, if you are unable to build cars to a budget you end up like saab. Money (again). If you are having to reuse parts from other cars because of lack of budget (or to cost cut in manufacturing) then you are limited in what you can do. Knowledge of customer base. If you don't know what your target audience wants you can make all the best decisions in the world, but you still won't please them. Middle management. If middle management wants something, often it doesn't matter whether it is a good idea or not, you got to put it on the car. I think the reality is that it is impossible for huge companies to not fail occasionally. Coordinating thousands of staff is not easy, ensuring that all staff are listened to is not easy. Especially in western culture where everything is quite hierarchy based. I guess its a case of too many cooks spoil the broth, but equally not enough and you can't compete on a large scale. While the US is a pretty good place to look for stories of automotive failure it has nothing on the UK and British Layland which ended up killing almost all of the British car manufacturers by producing absolute horse crap year on year. Until they all went under. They couldn't manage their workers so there were constant strikes and the cars were shoddily built, enter the japs and germans who were producing far better cars at affordable prices and it was basically game over once people no longer cared about the war. --- Post updated --- In 30 years time the technology that was used to build today's cars will seem primitive. Plus it is also very possible to restore electronic circuits, you just probe around with a multimeter to find which bit is broken and replace any broken parts. The main difference is that most people who are into cars these days know very little about electronics, in the future it may be required knowledge. Therefore swapping out parts will not be an issue. Now, the main issue is with the software. Since if the chip storing that dies then you are somewhat sol. But the software that runs many cars these days is Windows CE with a manufacturer skin on top of it. So providing you know what the original software looked like you could just grab a copy of windows CE, create a skin for it, find out how it communicates with the rest of the car and reprogram it and create an emulation. Once again, I imagine this will be more of a trivial task in 30 years time. It more than likely that there will be some people who create these sorts of things and either sell the emulations or open source them for anyone to install. As for plastics. If minor cracks etc then careful appliance of glue would probably do the job. But lots of cars with plastic parts exist today and people seem to manage fine, you just find a spare part and replace it. In the future it is possible that 3d printing (or a newer better tech) will be advanced enough to print the parts well enough to look like originals using the correct materials. Without a doubt everything is getting more and more advanced, but at the end of the day someone still has to make these advanced cutting edge systems and if they can do it today then it is more than likely that it will be easier to do in 30 years time.
I was thinking of creating a heavy machinery discussion thread (i.e. tractors, semis, other heavy machinery), but was just wondering if anyone was interested in something like this?
Oh yeah, I imagine that in 30 years time, car restoration will be less of a job for a metalworker, and more job for a software engineer. As metal is increasingly replaced with plastics and composites, car restoration will probably just become more and more just "the (insert part here) is broken, so I gotta download the specs and 3D print a new one in my garage". Whether you like the old style of car restoration or what will probably replace it, is up to you. I can just imagine the future of the car enthusiast hobby: Observer: "Wow! is that a 2016 Ford focus! Look at that primitive internal combustion engine, I bet this thing is loud. How do you get places? I don't see the autonomous driving system?" Collector: "I drive it myself, with that steering wheel, and an automatic transmission". Observer: "you drive it yourself!? you must have a lot of skill to drive without autonomous driving features.
Just wait until said observer gets to see one with a manual transmission, such ancient technology In the future I think it will seem insane that people were allowed to manually drive a car at 70mph (or faster) and did so by blowing up dinosaur remains.
Dodge viper is officially over They built 5 last ever special editions Which are remakes of older special editions
I bought a big yellow thing. 79 K30, 4 doors, 6 tires, 454, SM465, 205. Dana 60 Front Dana 70 Rear, 4.10 geared. Silverado Runs and drives, but needs tires and the rear brakes tend to hang up.
Thanks, It's actually almost rust free. So far plans are just to clean it up and find the trim for it, get the factory steering wheel back on it, and find out how much it would cost to get new carpet for it.
alot cheaper, plus you end up with some very unusual ratios in the transmission if you were to compensate that way
Interesting to see which manufacturers put the same safety equipment on both sides of the car rather than just the driver side which is currently the only side tested.
I want to see the IIHS do some outlandish shit. Like shooting a wheel+tire into the windshields of compact sedans at 60mph or something.
The steel belt in a semi truck tire weighs something like 60 to 80 pounds. If that tire blows up and that belt comes thru your windshield, you WILL be decapitated.
It would be pretty good if they could sell cars in a special class which would be exempt from new safety regulations (prehaps working under 1980s regs or similarly), so that we could maximise the cars' potential. Imagine a brand new car weighing 650kg, with plenty of interior room, modern materials and technology, modern engines, great styling (no strict impact protection laws to obey), and a cheap pricetag. The possibilities would be endless. Of course, it wouldn't be very successful because people who buy new cars mostly care more about trendiness and safety, and less about reliability and driving.
